ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 7, 1996 TAG: 9607080135
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KERMIT W. SALYER JR.
A FEW years ago, I took an environmental geology class at Virginia Western Community College. The instructor was ostensibly an ardent environmentalist.
During a class discussion, the question was raised: "What is the single most important thing we can do to protect the environment in this country?" Without hesitation, I said that the tax on gas should be raised by $1. Well, the teacher hit the roof. She replied, "But that would hurt me!" I passed the class, but she no longer passed, in my book, as a selfless environmentalist. Not too many people do.
The answer I gave is valid. Sure, it would burden a lot of people to pile on that $1 of tax all at once. But it doesn't have to be added all at once. Incremental increases over a relatively short period would accomplish the same objective: to bring American gasoline prices more in line with those in the rest of the world - closer to the fuel's actual costs - and to help protect the environment. The more gas costs, the less we use. The immediate effect would be to cut the number of miles cruised by cars on Williamson Road on weekends. I can breathe easier already.
The real, longer-lasting effect would be to rein in suburban sprawl, the greatest threat to the health of this country's open spaces. The price of fuel would finally enter into the equation of where to live. No longer would the most remote site possible be the most attractive to the homeowner. Buyers might look at locations in their cities, nearer their places of work. They might even choose an existing house in an already transformed landscape rather than scrape off the top of a mountain for a kingdom to call their own.
Repealing the federal gas tax by the 4.3 cents added in 1992 is ridiculous. Americans have been getting a gas-tax cut every year since the 1979 squeeze. Adjusted for inflation, the cost of gas has gone down every year since 1980 - it's more than 50 percent cheaper than it was 15 years ago. If ever there was a time to increase the gas tax, we missed it, and its benefits as well.
The 1992 gas-tax increase netted the government more than $5 billion a year, money earmarked to reduce the deficit. A $1 tax increase would, at this rate, net the government $100 billion a year. An amount like this could greatly enhance the solvency of the country. And by reducing the amount of oil (17 million barrels a day) we import, we would be less hostage to the whims of tin-plated dictators sitting atop Middle East oil reserves. For those who would be hurt by a tax increase, there would be enough money to form a new bureaucracy to issue gas stamps, much like food stamps.
This centenary year of the automobile may finally be the time to replace the freeway free-for-all with some common sense. If we wish to continue to use our cars through the next century in much the same manner we use them today, we should pay for the privilege or we'll be blindsided by the sudden unavailability of fuel, and thousands of miles of useless asphalt will be the legacy by which we're remembered.
Kermit W. Salyer Jr. of Roanoke is on the library staff at Virginia Western Community College.
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